General Interest > Open Free for All

WARTIME CONTRACTS FAVOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S CORPORATE CRON

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Anonymous:
Greens see extensive war profiteering by firms with White House and Pentagon connections, while Bush urges Americans -- especially troops and veterans -- to sacrifice.


WASHINGTON, DC -- Funding for the war on Iraq, while requiring massive cuts in social spending for health, education, services, and welfare and reduction of veterans benefits, is becoming a huge windfall for favored corporations, say members of the Green Party of the United States.

"This $100-billion war is proving a cash cow for corporations, especially those with connections to the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon, while U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and soldiers face death and injury," said Tom Bolema, Town Councilperson (Green) of Juniper Hills, California.  "European governments are furious that the administration plans to award the major contracts, worth somewhere between $20 billion and $100 billion, to U.S. corporations, without any competitive bidding process."

"The Bush Administration has already awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraqi oil fields," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States.  "USAID awarded a $4.8 million contract to Stevedoring Services of America to manage the Umm Qasr port.  Companies like the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corporation, Parsons Group and defense contractors Carlyle Group and Global Crossing are expected to make millions off the war.  Humanitarian relief, including assistance in Iraq's water shortage, is proving a distant second in priority behind military deals and control over Iraqi oil."

The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics documents that Halliburton (for which Vice President Cheney served as CEO from 1995 to 2000), Bechtel, Fluor, and Parsons contributed a combined $2.64 million to political campaigns between 1999 and 2002, with 68 percent of those dollars given to Republicans.  

"Bechtel is asserting the right, granted through the IMF and World Bank, to take private control over municipal public water supplies in Bolivia, most controversially in Cochabamba," said Mark Dunlea, chair of the Green Party of New York State.  "Will Bechtel use its current connections and postwar influence to take over Iraqi resources?"

Other recent revelations:

*** According to the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network and the Institute for Policy Studies, current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then Secretary of State George Shultz, acting on behalf of Bechtel, began negotiating a deal with Saddam in 1983 to open up the Aqaba pipeline through Iraq.  Saddam's rejection resulted in the first rift in U.S.-Iraq relations.

*** An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity revealed that nine members of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board have ties to major defense contractors.  (The exposure of Richard Perle's conflicts of interest connections with Global Crossing led to Perle's resignation as board chair last week, but Perle will retain a seat on the board.)

*** Massive new powers for Vice President Cheney to classify U.S. documents will ensure less oversight and accountability, shielding contractors and government officials with conflicts of interest from public scrutiny.

"These deals reveal that the major motivation for the invasion has less to do with concern for liberation, an already dubious promise under prolonged U.S. occupation, than with giving the U.S. corporate and political control over Iraq and its resources," said Ben Manski, Wisconsin and national party co-chair.  "It's a situation comparable to Enron's looting of Croatia when the Clinton Administration awarded it a contract to help rebuild that nation after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.  What we're seeing now is Enron politics at its worst."

JDavid:
Yeah it really gets under my skin when I hear someone on TV talking about these deals.  They say stuff like "America has paid in blood" or similar phrases.  Whoever they're interviewing never responds with something like "Because the people who fought in the war are not Haliburton, Stevedoring Services, Bechtel Group, Fluor Corporation, Parsons Group".  They also never say "Because these are not Iraq or Arab companies".

People say sending 3 to 10 billion per year to Israel is a good deal because Israel turns around and spends it on US weapons.  I think the phrase is "the money comes right back to America anyway".  Yeah, money sent in by tax payers then laundered back to the weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

If we could kill all the rich people, there would be no more poverty.  I bet there would be no more abortion crisis also.

David

Antigen:
Yeah, more and more, I'm all for putting the major players in a ring and let the rest of us just stand back and watch.

It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.

--Joseph Goebbels
--- End quote ---

JDavid:
A few anarchists and I have recently talked about trying to start a huge campaign called "Ignore the Government".  It would have stages.  The first stage would just be fun.  Switching off the TV whenever a political statement is being made and refusing to vote.  After that, stages such as widespread tax evasion, then refusing to pay mortgages and rent.

I haven't finished designing it yet, but I want to put the reasons for doing this are for "world peace, no more poverty and abortion, no more ruling class scams" and so on.

There's a lot more to it.  Self-government and direct democracy is no easy concept to learn.

I loose faith in the idea every time I talk to some Fox News viewing pussycat who's ready to roll over for our oh-so-noble government though.

The deeper I get into the idea the more it feels like I'm helping to ring in the apocalypse, if there is such a thing.

David



[ This Message was edited by: JDavid on 2003-04-06 23:08 ]

Antigen:
Well, I don't think direct democracy is all that great an idea. At least not on a huge scale. Works OK for a small community where everyone at least sees, if they don't feel directly, the consequences of their choices. Otherwise, it's kind of like mob rule. No, it's exactly like mob rule!

Here are some of my odder thoughts on what has worked and what has failed. We lost the Civil War. And, before anyone goes jumping all over me and calling me dirty nasty names, the Civil War was not about Slavery. That was just the divisive, hot button issue used by alleged Republicans as an excuse to do a whole lot of damage to our Republic. The Civil War didn't end slavery, either, except on paper. You can find slaves right in the US in the prison population as well as illegals working the sugar cane fields and groves in Central Florida. Literally, they are stuck, they work or they get beaten and starved. If they try to run away, and they make it past 20 miles or so of bad swampland, the local law will snatch them up and gladly take the INS bounty to deport them back to Haiti or Honduras or whevever they originally fled from.

That's a long way of saying that I think a limited government for mutual defense and relatively peaceful redress of grievance was a good thing. Not a perfect thing, but it worked better than anything else we know of for as long as it lasted.

Last time, we attained a Republic by way of our local government leaders and business leaders. Most all of the founders and revolutionaries were men of means and officers of the Crown. They led the way to freedom from the Crown and, I think, that's about the only reasonably peaceful way a revolution has ever happened and the only way that a revolution or change of government has not resulted in despotism far worse than before.

So try and appeal to local government to quit going along. It's a whole lot easier than the idea of facing them down when they come to your door armed and ready to arrest you for not paying taxes.


Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.
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